Russian Orthodox Church Responds to Women Who 'Are Not Afraid to Speak'

Thousands of women in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus
have taken to social media to share their experiences of sexual
violence in an
online flash mob under the hashtags #янебоюсьсказати
and #янебоюсьсказать (I am not afraid to speak)
started by Ukrainian social activist Anastasia Melnichenko.

Russia has responded, with the Russian Orthodox
Church at the forefront.

Archpriest Dmitry Roschin, head of the synodal
department for church governance with the public and the media,
advised women participating in the online flash mob to turn to
priests instead of posting their stories on Facebook. According to
Roschin, the sexual harassment narratives these women share on social
media could be then used against them.

“The church provides a worldview that has
answers to all questions of human life,” Roschin was quoted saying
by news website paperpaper.ru on Thursday. “That being said,
the right to participate in the movement still belongs to everyone.”

Hieromonk Makary, host of the online project
“Questions for a Priest,” believes that there is certain
information, particularly stories of sexual violence, which should
not be divulged to the general public, but to psychologists, police
or priests.

Makary said that some female activists suffer from
“exhibitionism— particularly with sexual, social and other
roots.” He added that these flash mobs qualify as exhibitionism and
should not be disclosed to the public, RIA Novosti reported.

On July 14, Facebook suspended the account of
Melnichenko.

“[Facebook administrators] sent me a
notification yesterday, saying that I'd supposedly posted something
that doesn't comply with Facebook's rules. And then it turned out
that my account had been suspended temporarily, to check to make sure
it's not fake,” Melnichenko said, the Meduza news website reported.

Melnichenko suspects that this was probably due to
a barrage of coordinated complaints about her account made by
Facebook users, according to the news source. “It's clear that this
is connected to the flash mob,” she told Meduza. “It's just that
Facebook is my personal mass-media outlet. I use it to communicate
with the world, and so I'm in a state of mild panic right now.”